


A Promise Never Broken

by mediocrityatbest



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Patton has depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 21:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21186371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediocrityatbest/pseuds/mediocrityatbest
Summary: This if for Sanders Sides Spooky Month on Tumblr being hosted by @sanderssidescelebrations!Day Eight Prompt: Sunsets In SweatersWhen the waters rise, Dee will always be there.





	A Promise Never Broken

Patton was sitting on the roof when Dee found him.

“Hey,” he said, sitting next to him, the bundle of cloth and thermos set to the side. Patton hummed quietly, dying sunlight reflecting in his glasses. Dee didn’t say anything else. They watched the sun in silence as the wind moved their hair around.

“Bad day?” Dee asked minutes later. Patton shrugged noncommittally. The sky was steadily pinking as the sun dropped below their horizon. Dee offered a thermos of hot chocolate to him. The thermos wasn’t his usual baby blue or pale pink with stickers decorating it; it was plain gray. It had been a gray kind of day.

Patton took the thermos and didn’t say anything; held it in his hands for a moment, watching the sky as its warm colors receded. He took a sip.

“How’s it taste?” Dee asked.

“Hot,” Patton said, and that wasn’t a taste but it was a feeling. Dee could ask about a feeling. Just not yet, not while Patton was still swishing the hot chocolate in his thermos and staring at the sky like it would give him the answer to something important if he stared long enough. He took another sip, and Dee mirrored him. He’d made them both almost painfully sweet, the way Patton usually liked it.

Not on gray days, though.

“Have you been cold?” Dee asked finally, and he wasn’t as surprised as he would have liked to be when Patton shrugged. It wasn’t as often as it used to be, but the hurt was still just as bad some days. Some days it was a cresting wave, slamming Patton to the bottom of the ocean and ripping at his oxygen tank. Some days, it was like a gentle current, rising slowly enough that Patton didn’t realize it was there until he was treading water. Some days it was a just a puddle that barely rose over his soles.

Some days it was a fish tank in an aquarium and Patton was the main attraction.

“Roman sent over some sweaters,” Dee said. He picked up the light gray and blue one, with the hearts and water drops and ‘xoxo’ worked neatly into the soft fabric. “He made them. He said he had a feeling you might be needing one.” Dee passed it to Patton, watched as Patton rubbed the material between his fingers, and just for a moment a smile flitted across his face. It fell off immediately after like gravity was too much to fight against, but it had been there and that was something. It was something good. “He sent a card, too.” Dee held it out, waited to see if that was something Patton wanted.

It was. He didn’t open it to read, but he slipped it into his pocket. He took another sip of his drink. The sun drooped lower.

“It’s soft,” Patton said, fingers idly rubbing the fuzzy blue. Dee nodded, waited. Patton swirled his thermos, not looking anywhere more than the orangey-pinkness of the sky. “Sky’s pretty.”

“Yeah,” Dee said, eyes flicking against Patton’s profile before watching the last rays of sun as they sank. A few stars started to glow above them.

“I think I like the pink,” Patton said. He leaned back slightly to look at the whole sky. “More shallow than the blue, softer than the orange. It’s nice.”

“Yeah,” Dee said again, training his eyes to not look where they most wanted to go. Patton had once told him too much attention was like walking around with acid eating through a bucket right above your head; it could get through to you at anytime, but you never knew when it would happen.

“Is it cold to you, Dee?” Patton asked.

“A little,” he admitted. There were goosebumps on his arms and legs under his clothes, but he was more sensitive to the cold than most. He’d be lying if he said he’s gotten used to it. “But I have a feeling we’ll make it through.”

“You shouldn’t stay somewhere that’s making you uncomfortable,” said Patton.

“Do you want to be alone?” asked Dee.

“No,” said Patton. Dee was reminded of once, when Patton had begged him not to leave him alone. Dee had promised never to do it, of course he had, what else did you do for someone you loved? But Dee was also reminded that unlike him, Patton had been brought up in a family that genuinely cared for one another. He had not lived a day of his life unloved.

And yet he still felt it like Dee had. He was still just as surprised as Dee was when someone else cared for him, and Dee would be lying if he said that didn’t feel worse than any amount of cold could.

“I won’t leave you,” Dee promised again. He would reaffirm it until Patton didn’t have to ask, and then he’d probably do it again. It was one of the few things in life you could never say too many times. ( _ I love you. I’ll be here.) _

Patton almost smiled, halfway cried, and then smoothed it all over again. Dee wanted to ask, but Patton had told him sometimes there is no reason, and sometimes it’s better to wait. So Dee bit his tongue and smiled for them both and held out a hand.

“Come on. We can wear our soft new sweaters and drink hot chocolate and watch Parks & Rec bloopers until the light comes back.” The barest hint of a smile graced Patton’s lips, and he took Dee’s hand and stood. He turned his back on the last ray of sunlight before it could be swept away by darkness and they walked back into the house.

The truth was, when the waters rose and Patton was fighting for oxygen, Dee could never be his oxygen tank. But he could be the hook that kept the tank hanging on or the force that reminded Patton to breathe. And sometimes, that was enough.


End file.
